Red Gloves
2023 · 11m · USA
Directed by Santiago Saba Salem
In 1980s New York City, a young dancer who stays behind alone to keep rehearsing is stalked by a shadowy figure wearing red gloves.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
It's a pretty straightforward stalker-in-the-shadows setup—red gloves as the only visual signature feels like it's trying to do the work a actually weird premise would do naturally. The 80s NYC dancer angle has potential to subvert, but the film seems content to play it straight.
Salem demonstrates compositional control in the studio sequences, and there's a clear debt to body-horror and giallo traditions that the formal framings respect—though the film walks a well-trodden path without offering much formal argument of its own.
What makes this work is the decision to keep the camera locked on the dancer's isolation and movement while the threat remains peripheral—that spatial commitment to her focus, rather than cutting to the stalker's POV, transforms a familiar premise into something about vulnerability through choreography alone.
Reviews
It's impossible to not notice the apparent Suspiria-vibes in this one, and it's like a love letter to both the aforementioned film and the giallo genre.